Standard signage, including billboards, posters, banners, murals, labels, and other signs, typically provide the same content to all viewers, independent of viewing location. This often limits the purpose of the signage to general information broadcast, or to deliver relevant content to some location(s) at the expense of less relevance to others. For example, an advertisement poster in a grocery store placed in front of the vegetables display may show a discount on vegetables. While relevant for shoppers standing by the vegetables, the poster may be irrelevant to shoppers standing by other products, such as the dairy section.
Lenticular signage can be used to display different content to different locations. One common application of this is for auto-stereoscopic 3D. By directing different views of the same scene at high angular resolution, the two eyes of a viewer may each see an appropriate image to create a 3D effect.
Lenticular signage can also be used as multi-view signage in static multi-view displays (SMVD), presenting different content to different locations. For example, this could be used to create an animated effect for moving viewers, or to provide additional content that can be accessed by changing viewing location. Such signage, if designed correctly, may present different content to different locations in the environment to improve relevancy. In the aforementioned grocery store example, a static multi-view sign may direct a vegetable-promotion image towards the vegetable display, while simultaneously directing a dairy promotion towards the dairy section. However, the process for designing such static multi-view signage is cumbersome and needs further improvements.
In more recent developments, an electronic multi-view display (EMVD) can simultaneously present a different respective image to each one of plural viewers that are at different viewing locations with respect to the EMVD. For example, Sharp Corporation and Microsoft Corporation have developed displays that are capable of showing a small number of independent views based on the viewer's angle with respect to the display. Viewers can interact with these displays using standard control devices. For example, there might be separate game controllers for a left view and a right view.
Advances in technology are expected to result in next-generation EMVDs that would enable hundreds to thousands of people to simultaneously view a single display yet each see something different. These devices would be able to operate by controlling the images presented at different viewing locations, each of which has a unique viewing angle with respect to the EMVD. Further advances in designing content for such displays are desired.